Even though he has little name recognition in most circles, this article is about a man of considerable importance in the history of California and of marked religious interest since he was canonized by Pope Francis five years ago on September 23, 2015.
Who
Was Junípero Serra?
Miguel José Serra was
born in November 1713 on the Spanish island of Mallorca in the Mediterranean
Sea. When he took his vows to become a Franciscan priest in 1737, Serra took
the name Junípero, which was the name of one of St. Francis’s devoted friends.
From his childhood, Serra dreamed of becoming a missionary. After
teaching philosophy for several years in Spain, in 1749 he finally was able to
make the 6,000-mile trip to Mexico and to begin missionary work there.
On December 15 of that year, Father Serra and another priest started
walking from the coastal city of Veracruz to Mexico City, some 260 miles away.
On the journey, he was bitten by a mosquito and his left foot became infected. He
suffered for the rest of his life from that malady.
Serra spent 38½ years as a missionary in Mexico, Baja California, and in
what was then known as Alta California. He died in what is now Monterey County,
California, in August 1784 at the age of 70.
The
Noble
Junípero Serra
Serra’s main claim to
fame is as the founder of nine “missions” along the coast of California, from
San Diego de Alcalá (in 1769) in the south to San Francisco de Asís (in
1776) on the north. The current
cities of San Diego and San Francisco, of course, grew out of Serra’s missions.
In 1769, it is estimated that there were around
300,000 Native Americans in what is now California. Through the indefatigable efforts
of Serra and his co-workers, about one-third of those became Roman Catholics.
Because of his meritorious missionary work, Serra
became the first Hispanic person to be canonized—by the first Hispanic Pope in the
first canonization mass held in the United States.
Even though he was a Franciscan
priest and missionary, Serra is sometimes called “the father of California” (see
here, for example). Pope
Francis has said that he sees Serra as “one of the
founding fathers of the United States.” Many Californians through the
years have agreed.
As you probably know,
each state chooses statues of two of the most important persons in their
states to stand in the U.S.
Capitol Building. California’s statues are of Ronald Regan and the
noble Junípero Serra.
The
Ignoble
Junípero Serra
There are many who disagree with Serra’s adulation, however. At the time of his canonization, there were serious protests in California, especially by Native Americans. Serra’s statue in a city park in Monterey was decapitated at that time.
Interestingly, in sympathy with the protests against Confederate statues this year, Serra’s monuments again became targets of protest. On June 19 activists pulled down a Serra statue in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, and the next day, a Serra statue in Los Angeles was toppled.
A
9/29/15 New
York Times article frankly states, “Historians agree that [Serra] forced
Native Americans to abandon their tribal culture and convert to Christianity,
and that he had them whipped and imprisoned and sometimes worked or tortured to
death.”
Ten
weeks before Serra’s canonization, Pope
Francis publicly apologized for the “grave sins” of colonialism against
Indigenous Peoples of America. But that did not keep him from following
through with his making Serra a saint.
Although there is much to admire about Junípero Serra, it was probably a mistake for him to be canonized—but
since he was, it is fitting
to call Serra a sorry saint.
◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊
Dan
Horan is a Franciscan priest and a theology professor whom I cited at some
length in my August
25 blog post. On July 8 he had a thought-provoking article largely about Serra
in the National Catholic Reporter, and I recommend the careful reading of that
perceptive article titled “The preferential option for the removal of
statues.”
